180 Gram Audiophile Vinyl LP Record Remaster

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The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle is the second studio album by American musician, singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen, originally released in September 1973 by Columbia Records.

Springsteen expanded the folk-rock approach of his debut album, to strains of jazz, among other styles, on ambitious follow-up, The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle. His chief musical lieutenant was keyboard player David Sancious, with who’s help, Springsteen created a street-life mosaic of suburban society that owed much in its outlook to Van Morrison's romanticization of Belfast in ‘Astral Weeks’.

The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle represented an astonishing advance even from the remarkable promise of his debut; the unbanded three-song second side in particular was a flawless piece of music. Musically and lyrically, Springsteen had brought an unruly muse under control and used it to make a mature statement that synthesized popular musical styles into complicated, well-executed arrangements and absorbing suites; it evoked a world precisely even as that world seemed to disappear.

Following the personnel changes in the E Street Band in 1974, there is a conventional wisdom that this album is marred by performance problems. None of that is true. The band, especially David L. Sancious on keyboards and Clarence Clemmons on saxes, cook with power and precision, particularly on "Rosalita" and "Kitty's Back", the album's outstanding rockers. They're essentially an R&B outfit, but they can play anything thrown at them, be it jazz or Highway 61 Revisited.

The album's songs contain the best realisation of Springsteen's poetic vision, which soon enough would be tarnished by disillusionment. He would later make different albums, but the truth is, The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle is one of the greatest albums in the history of rock & roll. Musically, Springsteen would never be so eclectic again.